Western Short StoryBurial of a Dark Charger Tom Sheehan

Western Short Story

Looking from one
end of a story to another is enlightening in most circumstances.
Often the surprises on tap happen out of the blue ... or take a
piece of forever to come around.

The bright, leafy
day of October 11, 1827 came on, the wind like a music in the air and
the foliage near perfect for a stage backdrop or a classic painting,
the sort most of us know and appreciate. At this moment of
introduction, nine year old George Secord of Alton, New Hampshire,
was hurting, at pain's awareness, at self discovery. The toothache in
his head was severe, a different kind of gnawing, wholly persistent,
steady as drum rolls, as urgent, but the stage was set for monumental
relief ... a string hung across the room in mid air, as if floating
without support, until the ends were sought, one end tied to the
latch of an open door and the other end, the manipulative end, the
end of reason, mounted about a tooth in the mouth of young George.

His mother, about
to scream at him her discord, observed her youngest, George, nod to
his brother Moses, who promptly slammed the door with a mighty shove
from a boy two years older than this out-patient of sorts. The impact
of door on jamb echoed throughout the house, the mother nearly
fainted, and youngest Secord often said, from that day, he never felt
so much pain until a miniéball at the Civil War battle of Chancellorsville
slammed into his jaw, into the same area where that ugly tooth once
sat.

"History,"
he announced on certain holidays much later in life, "has its
small repetitions." Folks said he was prone at that moment to
place his open hand over the area of both wounds, a salutation to
memory and recovery, most likely.

As most boys of
Alton and nearby towns did in those days, he grew through his early
adventures on the lakes, in farm work, the odd jobs that small
opportunities offer, until he was older, grown up, a responsible
adult who went into several businesses himself, making them good,
making them do, making them his own enterprises. Prosper he did, made
a good name for himself, a businessman on the rise, who also stood
his ground on political issues and political duties.

Chief among them,
and most fervent, was the issue of slavery and emancipation. "Man,"
he stated on many occasions, "should be born free of harsh
weights such as slavery or any weird domination. Even without ropes
or manacles, such treatment is inhuman, is wrong from the start."

Free he was with
such statements of belief , near singing them at times, phrases that
rang with his feelings: "I care little for kings and masters,
for lords and dukes and royalty that set store above the common man
of any belief, strain, color or origin other than the occasion of
their arrival among us as men of the world, sitting about us, serving
us, as we should serve in total concert." As called for by his
spirits, he often stood against the chiding such views invoked, found
belittlement, discarded it as mundane and unworthy of his energy.

When the Great War
broke out between the states of his nation, he stood firm once again,
this time more than halfway through his life.

At age 44 at Alton
in 1862 he enlisted in the 12th NH Volunteer Infantry. Off to a just
war he went, but on his own horse, which he called Tom the Charger, a
dark steed of noble appearance. His most serious wound came about a
year later, on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville. He came
home to New Hampshire in 1864, a hero after his hospitalization and
discharge from the Army of the Blue. On that return he was mounted on
the same horse on which he had left town, Tom the Charger, the horse
he rode through his battles of the war. Departure and return, readily
visible to the people of Alton, were quite different.

It was dual pain
that day of battle's injury, as his brother Moses was killed by a
sniper's shot fired long range into his head. Pain, George was ever
to realize afterwards, comes in odd formation, odd direction, odd
circumstance, and is never taken back; never taken back and, only if
you're lucky, delivers a later and softer memory, proving to be an
easement on the soul, an emotional temperance many warriors seek as
balm and embrocation.

You can feel it,
but may never name it, he'd often agree, and his comrades would, too.
There were times he thought it was like seeing the mysterious lady in
a blue-ish dress who mysteriously and ghost-like appears while
positively silken, mellifluous, on
various evenings at the cemetery in Alton. Some citizens say she only
picks on certain subjects to brighten or sadden their lives.

Nevertheless she is
nameless, blurry, obviously lonely, haunting, getting her fair share
of attention. Nobody knows who she is, who of her own she's looking
for if she is, the kind of mystery never solved, perpetual, built on,
even when levity ascends a discussion about her sighting in the dusky
roadways of the cemetery, or in between mounds and mausoleums
scattered in odd symmetry:

"Don't make it
easy for ghosts to gather, or provide convention allowances for them.
They may frighten children, yet make us ponder and wonder of their
bracing."

After his wounding
and hospitalization, Maj. George Secord, it was said, performed light
army duty until his discharge in May 1864, as a Lt. Colonel, to which
he had been promoted "for his brave services" and may have
assumed a title one level up as a "general." This
subsequent act may have been accorded him by military recognition and
acceptance.

For the curious,
biographical notes clearly say he is buried in Riverside Cemetery in
Alton, NH on Route 11. That he enlisted at age 44 at Alton in 1862 in
the 12th NH Volunteer Infantry, was wounded 5/3/63 at the Battle of
Chancellorsville, and came home riding on his horse, Tom the Charger,
in 1864 after discharge from military service.

An historical check
on battle records, for infusion into this account and a recognition
of deeds, say that despite its losses, the 12th regiment held fast to
contested grounds, actions that served to delay Rebel advances for a
number of hours. The regiment's personnel had been issued about 60
rounds of ammunition, quickly expended and more cartridges were
extracted from dead or wounded soldiers. In the progression of the
battle, Rebel units were trying to circle the 12th, to cut it off
from allied forces. Many of its officers were dead and the 12th
retreated. More Confederate forces joined in quickly closing about
the diminished 12th, and survivors rushed to the protection provided
by a new Union line of resistance built near the Chancellor House.
When they re-gathered in a rear position, the 12th, for all intents
and purposes, was out of the battle of Chancellorsville.

The battle was a
highly costly engagement for the 12th, for 41 men were killed, 200 or
more wounded, over 60 taken as prisoners or reported as missing in
action. Those counts are applied to

a complement of 560
or so men, the highest losses sustained by a Union force at
Chancellorsville,

The regiment also suffered heavy casualties two months later at
Gettysburg and again at Cold Harbor in June of 1864.

But George Secord was on his way home, mounted on the faithful steed
that carried him off to war, through that war, and finally brought
him home.

After the end of the war, Secord enjoyed a successful career, but
the great charger Tom, succumbed. His master asked the town fathers
for permission to bury "this other veteran of the Great War"
in the town cemetery.

There was, of course, concerns both ways for man and horse, but the
town council, realizing what might happen in the future with loyal
and dependent animals, pets, etc., denied the request but allowed
Secord to bury Tom the Charger right outside the cemetery fence.

But, as mortality has its ends, as towns and communities grow and
face deaths and burials of its folks, that cemetery in Alton just
mushroomed in its slow pace, and spread its land claims beyond the
old fence line. In fact, in more than a hundred years, much father
past the original fence line.

Today, in Alton, both Lt. General George Secord and Tom the Charger
lie within the bounds of the cemetery, that gallant horse practically
at midpoint of the town cemetery.

It is not beyond reason that horse and rider may on occasion
accompany the Lady in the Blue-ish dress on her nightly rounds,
silence their gain, a ghostly appearance as well.